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Even the most experienced entrepreneurs run up against resistance and in this episode we’re going to share 3 challenges that popped up for us and how we worked through them together!
Whenever you change something, whether it’s a routine, a process, or pivoting your entire business, there are so many unforeseen ripple effects that will create resistance. We bumped up against a few of these and want to share the emotions and roadblocks we encountered as well as how we worked through them as a team (even if it was difficult in the moment).
Join us as we talk about facing the “stuffed closet,” introverts doing customer interviews, and “don’t talk to me before lunch.”
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We’re Jason and Caroline Zook, a husband and wife team running two businesses together and trying to live out our version of a good life in the process. In this business podcast, we share with you our lessons learned about how to run a calm, sustainable business—one that is predictable, profitable AND peaceful. Join us every Thursday if you’re an online creator who wants to reach your goals without sacrificing your well-being in the process.
[00:00:00] Caroline: Welcome to What Is It All For?, a podcast designed to help you grow your online business and pursue a spacious, satisfying life at the same time. We're your hosts, Jason and Caroline Zook, and we run Wandering Aimfully, an un-boring business coaching program. Every week, we bring you advice and conversations to return you to your most intentional self and to help you examine every aspect of your life and business by asking, What is it all for? Thanks for listening. And now let's get into the show.
[00:00:28] Jason: And I'm here, too.
Hello and welcome to the podcast. Welcome to the podcast. What did we just eat? Like, just the last thing we just ate, the last thing we just put in our mouths?
[00:00:44] Caroline: Plastic?
[00:00:45] Jason: No. Candle wax?
[00:00:49] Caroline: Candle wax.
[00:00:49] Jason: I just wanted to share. We're not doing a lot of life in Portugal updates at the moment, but when we have more things to share, we'll share them as the preamble to the podcast. There is one clear difference in foods that you buy in Europe.
[00:01:03] Caroline: First of all, food is a strong word.
[00:01:05] Jason: Yeah, I'm going to get to it. Specifically candies.
[00:01:07] Caroline: Candies.
[00:01:08] Jason: Can be, and I think it's the regulations.
[00:01:10] Caroline: It is. Okay. So what Jason's referring to is we didn't actually eat candle wax or plastic. We had Swedish Fish that we bought here in Portugal. And if you're an American listening to this, when you think Swedish Fish, you think of bright red.
[00:01:25] Jason: Bright red.
[00:01:26] Caroline: Swedish Fish.
[00:01:26] Jason: Yeah, they're like sugary, but not, like, too sugary. It's like a gummy bear, but it's like a little bit harder in texture.
[00:01:33] Caroline: Yeah. And so, Jason, I forget what store you're at, and you're like, oh, Swedish Fish. We don't eat a ton of candy.
[00:01:38] Jason: But every once in a while it's like, I'll get a small bag.
[00:01:40] Caroline: Yeah.
[00:01:40] Jason: Also, how many Swedish Fish were in the bag that I bought?
[00:01:42] Caroline: Yeah, they're bigger here, and there's like eight.
[00:01:45] Jason: Yeah, there's not that many.
[00:01:46] Caroline: But what's so funny is we open up the bag and they're like light orange red. And we're like, Huh.
[00:01:52] Jason: And I did buy two bags of them and they were both the same color. So it's not like...
[00:01:55] Caroline: Immediately, I'm like, oh, I think that red dye number twelve or whatever is like a carcinogen. So they don't allow it in Europe, but in America, we're like, It's fIne.
[00:02:05] Jason: Swedish Fish. Got to be red.
[00:02:07] Caroline: And it's just really funny. If you're wondering, they don't taste the same.
[00:02:10] Jason: They are Swedish Fish. So you would think they would have started here, and they would have been this color. But then when they got to America, they're like, I mean, they may be Swedish, but they need to be redder.
[00:02:19] Caroline: I thought you were going to make a joke about them being Sweet-ish Fish.
[00:02:22] Jason: They are also Sweet-ish.
[00:02:23] Caroline: They are definitely more sweet.
[00:02:26] Jason: This is a missed opportunity for me to now have the backstory for Swedish Fish. For everyone to walk away from this episode knowing the backstory of Swedish Fish.
[00:02:32] Caroline: Is there anything Swedish about Swedish Fish?
[00:02:33] Jason: Doubtful. If I was to wager, I would say no, but...
[00:02:36] Caroline: That feels right.
[00:02:38] Jason: Yeah. Maybe it'll be a cliffhanger for you all to come back to the next episode when I'll reveal the history of Swedish Fish that you couldn't possibly find yourself.
[00:02:44] Caroline: Also, a note to myself, don't eat that. It is not worth it. You asked me and I said yes because I wanted a treat.
[00:02:50] Jason: But sometimes it is worth it.
[00:02:51] Caroline: I know.
[00:02:52] Jason: Because...
[00:02:52] Caroline: Today, it wasn't. It doesn't taste good.
[00:02:54] Jason: You want something sweet?
[00:02:55] Caroline: Something sweet-ish.
[00:02:57] Jason: You want to have this experience where you get to talk about that thing and be like, it wasn't good, honestly.
[00:03:01] Caroline: I'm not even a big candy person. I think the only candy that is worth it for me right now is I will pretty much never say no to a Reese's peanut butter cup.
[00:03:11] Jason: I'm also not a big candy person.
[00:03:14] Caroline: You almost got it out.
[00:03:16] Jason: Let me try again. I got this.
[00:03:17] Caroline: Okay. You got it.
[00:03:18] Jason: I am... No, no, I have it. I could totally get it. Here. Just look over here.
[00:03:23] Caroline: Be so serious.
[00:03:23] Jason: I am also... It's fine. I'm also not a candy person.
[00:03:29] Caroline: That's right. Wow. I believed you so much.
[00:03:31] Jason: That was tough to say.
[00:03:32] Caroline: Yeah.
[00:03:32] Jason: Yeah, because it's true.
[00:03:33] Caroline: Because it's a lie.
[00:03:34] Jason: The truth is hard to say sometimes.
[00:03:37] Caroline: It's hard to hear when it's not the truth.
[00:03:38] Jason: You want to talk about some resistance?
[00:03:40] Caroline: I do. Okay. That's the really smooth segue into the meat of the episode. What's up?
[00:03:45] Jason: For those of you who are excited about our Creami adventure, we have gotten Creami. Just as an update, we are Ninja Creami people.
[00:03:51] Caroline: I like how we ended last podcast where I was like, I don't know. And by this next recording...
[00:03:56] Jason: We are Creami people.
[00:03:57] Caroline: We're now Creami people. I can't say it. I don't like it.
[00:04:00] Jason: Just like, I can't say that I'm not a candy person.
[00:04:01] Caroline: Exactly.
[00:04:02] Jason: A Ninja Creami is an ice cream making device, and it's kind of fun the way that it came about. Just real quick, a patent expired for a restaurant version that had been, like, the staple forever. The patent was for, like, 24 years.
[00:04:13] Caroline: Don't have the backstory of Swedish Fish. Do have the backstory of the Ninja Creami.
[00:04:16] Jason: Of course, because we're Creami people. We're not Swedish Fish people. We're part time Swedish Fish people. We're sweet-ish Swedish Fish people.
[00:04:22] Caroline: Swedish Fish.
[00:04:22] Jason: Anyway, we have been trying to make some ice cream. We are now five pints in, three of which have been inedible. Literally tasted like Play Doh.
[00:04:31] Caroline: Like, really close to Play Doh. Like, surprisingly close to Play Doh.
[00:04:34] Jason: I almost wanted to just start building some stuff, but it was ice cream texture.
[00:04:37] Caroline: Then it would have melted.
[00:04:38] Jason: Two chocolates have worked out just fine.
[00:04:39] Caroline: Yes.
[00:04:40] Jason: So today, after I finish doing this work, I'm going to get back in the kitchen, in the Creami kitchen, and I'm going to be experimenting with a chocolate, a strawberry, and then three new vanilla types.
[00:04:51] Caroline: Can't wait.
[00:04:52] Jason: Getting a good vanilla base so that you can make other things.
[00:04:54] Caroline: I also want to tell everyone what kind of changed my mind, because...
[00:04:58] Jason: About being creamy?
[00:04:59] Caroline: I was on the fence. I was like, first of all, we don't eat a lot of ice cream, so I don't know why we need this. Second of all, is this going to actually...? You're convincing me that it's like a health move, and I think that that is very bad marketing, because I don't think it is. But ultimately, number one, there's not a lot of things you get excited about in life.
[00:05:19] Jason: That's true.
[00:05:19] Caroline: You, Jason.
[00:05:20] Jason: Yeah.
[00:05:21] Caroline: So when you're excited about something, I pay attention because I'm like, there's something about this that's bringing him joy, and I want you to have more joy because I love you so much.
[00:05:29] Jason: Thank you.
[00:05:29] Caroline: So I'm like, okay. Secondly, I do like having... I'm not really that interested in making ice cream, but where I am interested is experiments. And I do love a science experiment. And that's basically what... You got me to watch a video or two, and I was like, oh, this is just science experiments.
[00:05:44] Jason: Jill really is helping us out.
[00:05:46] Caroline: Jill's helping us out.
[00:05:46] Jason: There are a bunch of really recipes that look delicious for the Ninja Creami, but they're all the foods we don't want to be eating normally. So I'm trying to find the plant based version.
[00:05:56] Caroline: Which is how we get to Play Doh. So, anyway, I decide that it is a fun thing for us to do together.
[00:06:03] Jason: Which is why we did it.
[00:06:04] Caroline: Which is why we did it.
[00:06:05] Jason: So after this, I'm going to get Creami in the kitchen. We got four empty pints. I got to fill. Five, I think. And you'll be able to be a part of the ingredients adventure.
[00:06:16] Caroline: Yeah.
[00:06:16] Jason: And then we'll see how it goes.
[00:06:17] Caroline: Aren't hobbies fun?
[00:06:18] Jason: They are fun. They are fun.
[00:06:20] Caroline: Really into hobbies right now.
[00:06:20] Jason: Hobbies are fun. All right, we've now ended the second preamble to the preamble. Let's go ahead and get into the episode.
[00:06:27] Caroline: The real meat of this episode.
[00:06:29] Jason: Is it that I'm resisting talking about resistance?
[00:06:31] Caroline: You might be. So the premise of this episode is this. We, Jason and I, are at the very predictable, very inevitable phase that we always come to about mid January of every year where we've implemented new changes. And by we, it's me, because I'm the one who likes change. We've implemented new changes in our lives to the systems that we work and our daily rituals and all these things. And now we are experiencing the tension and rockiness that often comes with a transition period of changing things. And what we realized recently that that can often reveal different resistance that comes up when you're trying to make a change, right? So here are just a laundry list. Well, really three main things that we've, like, changed.
[00:07:18] Jason: Short laundry list.
[00:07:18] Caroline: Short laundry list.
[00:07:19] Jason: You're just washing the socks, the undies and the two shirts.
[00:07:21] Caroline: Exactly. And we mentioned some of these things in the last episode, but I have made kind of like a big shift in my daily schedule and how I'm trying to do that, which we'll talk about. Basically, it's like focusing for the first 3 hours of the day on deep work tasks. We have changed our weekly schedule. We used to only work on Teachery on Fridays and work on our main business, WAIM, Wandering Aimfully, Monday through Thursday. We've swapped that. We talked about that last episode and then we've really, the biggest thing is changed our mindset just around priorities in business. So we're really trying to grow Teachery this year and this idea of putting not just maintenance effort towards this business, but growth effort, like really trying to grow the business. Right? And so in the past few weeks, we've changed all this stuff, how we're working and just our mindset. And now what is happening is these little pockets of resistance are popping up in all these different places. And I wrote down here, maybe you are listening to this and you have decided 2024 is your year, that you're going to implement this X, Y and Z new habit. Right? And the thing that we all need to realize is we've been doing things a certain way for so long that we've created these loops in our brain, these habit loops, or these very well worn grooves. Things have become almost automatic. They've become comfortable because you repeat something enough times and you don't have to exert that much mental effort in order to continue doing that thing. But what happens when you shift course? You change the way you're doing something. Of course you're going to run into these things that pop up that are almost like little boulders in the pathway, right. Because you're like, oh, this is a rocky little path. I haven't been walking down this 20 different times. This is new terrain, right?
[00:09:03] Jason: Well, yeah. And I think one of the big things, too, is that not only are you impacting your well worn path that you then have to navigate, you're impacting someone else's well worn path. Absolutely is not really intended. It's an unintended path, encumbrance. And so that becomes part of, there's a ripple effect we've run into where it was like, yeah, you had to break your habits or whatever and start new routines, and that was its own thing to do. But then it was like, oh, but this is affecting the other person. So hopefully for you all listening to this, if you're someone who wants to make changes or someone who likes to make changes, we hope that this helps you think a how to fight the resistance of yourself, but also how to think about the resistance that might pop up for your significant other, your partner, your spouse, whatever.
[00:09:49] Caroline: Yeah. Or even like, you're implementing new systems and processes in your business and you have team members and they might experience resistance and that might pop up, or just within yourself, you're trying to switch things and you have resistance, or, yeah, like Jason said, you have a partner or a spouse, and that is going to create some sort of pushback. And so we just finished up a Teachery meeting because that's when we have our meetings every week. And yet again, this idea of change plus resistance came up in a specific instance. And I looked back over the course of our week and really the past two weeks, and I thought to myself, it's very funny that this keeps coming up. And I just thought it deserved an entire podcast episode because I have been very proud of us in the way that we have recognized this resistance when it comes up. And instead of kind of like trying to fight back with the energy and kind of like using that tension to then kind of escalate as so often can happen, we've been very good, I think, about going, what's happening here? And let's dig in deeper to where this resistance is coming from so that we can then move through it more smoothly. So I just thought it might be valuable to share really specific ways that this has popped up. And Jason, I have a game to play with you, which is, I have named these three concrete examples, and so I want you to choose which one we should go to first.
[00:11:08] Jason: This is me choosing, because the person listening can't choose in time enough quickly.
[00:11:11] Caroline: Right. So let me tell you the three concrete examples of when change has led to resistance and how we've worked through it. Okay. Number one, we have facing the stuffed closet of Intercom. Okay. Behind door number two, we have introverts doing customer interviews.
[00:11:26] Jason: Nice.
[00:11:27] Caroline: And behind door number three, we have, quote, don't talk to me before lunch.
[00:11:32] Jason: Fantastic. I would be choosing door number three. Door number three, I'm going to go with here.
[00:11:37] Caroline: So don't talk to me before lunch. This particular scenario. Let me set the scene for you.
[00:11:42] Jason: Okay.
[00:11:43] Caroline: So I came to Jason. We talked about this a little bit in the last episode. I came to Jason, and I told him, I have this idea. I really want to kind of create boundaries around the first 3 hours of my day, my work day, so that I can get into a deep work zone. Because what used to happen is I'd usually use that time in the morning when my energy and my creativity is at an all time high. And we would go to the gym. And that worked for me for a long time because I was really trying to get back into working out every day. So I needed that discipline and energy to go towards the thing that was going to be the hardest for me to get motivated to do, which was work out great. The problem is that all of last year, we would end up working out because I wake up a little later than you by the time we get to the gym, by the time we get back. Maybe shower. Not always.
[00:12:32] Jason: Yeah.
[00:12:32] Caroline: It's 11:00 before I even get to something, and then it's lunch an hour after that. And so I could never get into this deep work zone until the afternoon. And the afternoon is when I'm actually at my lowest energy. It just didn't work for me. So I thought to myself, let me experiment. Let me start the day off capitalizing on my energy, and I'll move working out to the afternoon. Well, so far, I'm only two weeks in, and this has worked phenomenally well for me because by lunchtime, I feel like I've already made a huge dent and moves the ball forward on all this stuff. Right. Well, here's where this comes to. The ripple effect of this affects the people around you, because I decide to make this change, and I'm riding high on this new schedule.
[00:13:17] Jason: Then Taylor Swift is just bumping on the headphones.
[00:13:21] Caroline: And then you and I were working together on a collaborative project, and you were like, hey, can I ask you about this? And I said, great. This is my focus time. Like, let's circle back after lunchtime. What we've been doing is trying to schedule meetings and any collaborative stuff after lunch. And you kind of had, like, a little bit of frustration, not even, like, outwardly, but I was just like, oh, he didn't.
[00:13:42] Jason: Like, I only broke one plate, right?
[00:13:43] Caroline: Just one. Yeah. Don't break plates. We're just kidding.
[00:13:45] Jason: No, it's just a joke.
[00:13:46] Caroline: And so we meet up, and we're talking about this project, which is moving over to ConvertKit, which I think we've talked about a little bit, and there's a lot of moving parts to it, and I can just tell the energy that is being brought to this meeting, there's this pent up energy, and I'm like, where's this coming from? So, is this where you want to pick up and kind of say, from your perspective what you were feeling like?
[00:14:04] Jason: Yeah. So I also want to just say that I'm all for these changes that you want to make. Right. Like, I want you to be the best version of yourself possible. I want you to try all the things that you want to do. We love experimentation around here. But what you don't realize is when you say yes to these things that someone wants to do, that there are things you don't see coming.
[00:14:22] Caroline: Right.
[00:14:23] Jason: And so, for me, what happened was, every day I'm used to, I get up an hour earlier than you, but not even that is, I usually get, like, 2 hours of work done before you start working.
[00:14:33] Caroline: Right.
[00:14:33] Jason: So I inevitably, in that 2 hours of time, have piled up a bunch of random little things that I want to ask you about or, like, whatever, but I've already had to wait, like, 2 hours. And so what happened was you now added this focused work time, and so that two hour wait time that I had gotten used to had now become, like, a five hour wait time.
[00:14:52] Caroline: Right. And so we dug into this, too, because I was like, what's happening right now? I can feel the frustration. And that was when you basically said what you just said to me, which, well, actually, it took us a second to get there, but you were just like, hey.
[00:15:05] Jason: It was more like.
[00:15:08] Caroline: Where is this energy coming from? I know this sounds really silly, but I'm just saying it because I'm probably not the only one. It was the first time that I had even realized that me making a change for myself would impact you.
[00:15:21] Jason: Yeah. And I think that is the critical thing in relationships specifically, that you just don't see because you're focused on your own life. We're all focused on our own things every single day, and we're not thinking about the fact that even just, like, a small change in a schedule or whatever has such a big impact on the person around you that you spend all your time with.
[00:15:42] Caroline: Yeah. And I will even say sometimes I think highly sensitive people can get this sort of self centered rap a lot of times. And it's because when you're a highly sensitive person, you have to use so much mental effort and resources to manage your own existence, to manage your own energy, to manage your own. You know what I mean? You're kind of, like, fighting battles left and right all the time. And that's not to make that an excuse to not think about other people or care about other people or think about other people's needs. It's just that when you live your life that way for so many years, you are conditioning your brain to think about, how can I optimize my energy without thinking about how it might affect another person? Right. And so I'm just saying that out loud in case anyone resonates with that, because I know we do have a lot of highly sensitive people who listen to our stuff as well. And it is worth kind of training your brain for a second to go, okay, if I'm going to make this big change, let me check in with Jason's morning routine and see how is this going to affect any pieces for him.
[00:16:40] Jason: Yeah. And the other part of that is I probably would have said, like, no, I don't think so, because I wouldn't have known until that change exists for me to then kind of have the consequences of it. And that's not to say it's in a negative way. It's just, like, actually experience it.
[00:16:55] Caroline: You know what I just realized?
[00:16:56] Jason: Go ahead, Tyler.
[00:16:56] Caroline: I made a connection.
[00:16:57] Jason: Yeah.
[00:16:58] Caroline: I made a connection because we dug.
[00:17:00] Jason: In at the time, unflavored protein that's making the vanilla ice cream taste like Play Doh.
[00:17:05] Caroline: We have figured that out. Okay, got it. But this is separate realization.
[00:17:10] Jason: Got it.
[00:17:10] Caroline: So the big aha moment for me in this conversation that we had where I was like, oh, why is he so frustrated? Okay. We did finally get to this thing, which is, I'm up before you. I have these little admin tasks that are happening because what are you doing that time? You're checking customer support with Teachery, you're checking email. You're thinking about, when do we have to go to the grocery store? Like, you're the one who manages the admin of our businesses and lives. That is more of your role. And so you have all of these little sort of. We call them hanging chads for no reason, just in our family. But that means something to you. So, listeners, I want to tell you that that is a phrase that we use so that you will now know, when we say it, it's just a hanging chad. It's like something that is hanging. We need to pluck it. Okay? And so I'm like, so you were explaining this to me. You're like, yeah, by the time. The reason I touch base with you in the morning is because I have all these hanging chads, and I want to kind of move them along. And so the visual that popped up for me when you were describing this was this Mario pipe system where stuff's moving through all the time, and now there's a clog and it's backing up. And this is what you realized. You were like, it's backing up. So if I can't really clear these things until noon, I have to sit with those clogged pipes for 3 hours. And that makes you feel some type of way, right?
[00:18:29] Jason: Yeah.
[00:18:30] Caroline: And the connection that I just made, what is a realization that we have learned about you in the past year. We've always known that you're very prone to efficiency. Like, you like efficiency, but for you, both physically and mentally, it's very hard for you to stop. When you're in motion. You want to be on a trajectory, like a vector, and you just want to keep moving. And so I know that sounds so weird,
[00:18:58] Jason: But we all just have weird things. We all have weird things that kind of, like, make us who we are as people. And I do think that there are some people who can. Maybe you don't know that about yourself, but the way I would think about paying attention to it, that comes up for me a lot, is like, I would rather keep driving around to trying to find a parking spot than wait for someone to pull out of a parking spot because it's so inefficient for me to wait because I don't know how long that person is going to take, but I know how fast I can drive around a parking lot to find another spot.
[00:19:27] Caroline: Or, like, I remember one time I was like, oh, do you want to check the mail coming in? And you didn't stop to decide. You just kept going towards the mailbox. And I was like, okay. And it was this moment where I was like, oh, he just wants to keep going. And so the realization, the connection that I just made was that, I think going back to the pipe metaphor, it's uncomfortable for you to have that stop gap for 3 hours because the motion stops.
[00:19:55] Jason: Yeah, exactly. And I think for us, really, as we were looking at this kind of scenario here of change in resistance, it's important for me to realize, like, hey, it's not a big deal to wait three more hours, but it's also important on the other side to just acknowledge the fact that, hey, this does back my day up for three more hours. And I now have this mental load that didn't exist before. I can deal with it. But I just need you to know that if I'm a little bit frustrated, it's because I'm now having to change the way that we've done things for years that I've never had to wait three more hours. And again, I know it sounds stupid, but I think these are the small things, especially in relationships, that can create a ripple effect that you don't see, and you don't talk about.
[00:20:35] Caroline: And that's why I wanted to record this episode, because this is where I think the value is, is resistance. If you can carve out the curiosity and the time to actually go deeper and go, where is this resistance coming from to this change? What is the emotional discomfort that you are trying to avoid? And it's coming out in the form of frustration. It's coming out in the form of tension. And what's happening really is your brain is trying to protect you from feeling the discomfort of this stopping in motion thing, right? And instead of, again getting mad or fighting tension with tension or having it escalate even within yourself, it's just a little bit of curiosity and compassion to go like, oh, well, yeah, that's uncomfortable. You've been doing it this way for so long, and also, it's a moment of gratitude for me to go, hey, I just want to acknowledge all the work that you do to keep the ship moving all the time, to do the little tasks. By the time that I wake up, that needs to be acknowledged and it needs to be appreciated more. And here's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to get more focused stuff done so that I can be a better partner to you and our businesses, and I can move.
[00:21:48] Jason: Trying to make that bank, bro.
[00:21:49] Caroline: Trying to make that bank, bro. Obviously, everybody knows. So once you can identify it through that lens, it becomes like a way to create more connection instead of separation or tension. And so that was just one little scenario where I was like, oh, this is what's happening. And so we were able to move through that.
[00:22:08] Jason: Yeah. And just to wrap it up from my side, the first thing that I did was just basically acknowledge this uncomfortability and the change of pathways for me as well. The other thing was just really remind myself that, hey, all of these things that are "piling up" they're not important. The problem is that I've just been able to blast through them so quickly before, and now I have to wait, and I just have to deal with that uncomfortability. And even now, in the weeks since we've been dealing with this, it's been fine. And there's really nothing that has been holding me up. And so it's just a reframing for me, too, of like, hey, these things are not that important. They can wait three more hours. It's not a big deal.
[00:22:44] Caroline: It's like, by facing the, whoa.
[00:22:47] Jason: It's Okay.
[00:22:47] Caroline: I glitched. By facing the discomfort and actually acknowledging it, you then realize that you can withstand it.
[00:22:54] Jason: Exactly. And then you actually look at and go, what? Like, what is the problem? Like, oh, I just have to wait a little bit longer. Okay.
[00:23:00] Caroline: Yeah. And you can come up with creative solutions. Like, one of the solutions, I was like, oh, you can try as those things pile up, not keeping them in your brain and just keep like a Caroline's list. You know, like, keep it on a notepad of, oh, here are the things I need to run by Caroline. So at least it moves it through the pipes, like we were saying, and it just puts it in, like, a little side category, but at least it doesn't clog up the pipe.
[00:23:18] Jason: Exactly. All right. Right. I'm going to fight my own resistance of putting this last, and we're going to go to facing the stuffed closet of Intercom as our next scenario.
[00:23:26] Caroline: Good choice. Okay, door number one good choice. So this is the most recent of these scenarios. This has literally just happened in the meeting that we just had right before this recording this. And so it's very fresh. But once again, let me set the scene. So we're having our meeting, and we've gone through multiple things, and we get to this part of the meeting where I told Jason, hey, we set our monthly customer goals for Teachery, because we have this big goal of how we're trying to grow Teachery, and we have these monthly milestones of where we're trying to get our monthly recurring customers to. And right now, two weeks before the end of January, we're four customers short of our January goal. And so I told him, I was like, you know, I know it's only for four customers, but wouldn't it feel so good to start the year having momentum with really hitting our first monthly goal? And so I was like, let's take ten minutes to brainstorm. What are some really not scalable ways that we could think about just trying to. Is it reaching out to our trial people and seeing if they need help? Is it just nothing scalable, like I said, but just almost like direct, seeing if being scrappy, being scrappy and seeing if we can convert a few more people to if they want to become customers. And I bring this up, and Jason's like, well, here's why. I'm not really into that. And blah, blah, blah. This is where you can jump in and say from your perspective in that moment.
[00:24:45] Jason: Oh, yeah. I mean, it was just everything you were saying, I just wanted to say no to. That's me jumping in and telling the story.
[00:24:52] Caroline: You were just saying no left and right. But I was like, why? And also, I wrote down here, only a couple of people are going to get this reference. But again, I'm really into the visual metaphors right now. It was basically like "Mighty Ducks 2" when they're introducing all the new characters, and Julie the cat Gaffney, she's the goalie.
[00:25:10] Jason: Jason, I've only watched Mighty Ducks 1. Okay, mighty ducks, move forward.
[00:25:13] Caroline: We have the new team members. Julie the cat Gaffney, she's the goalie. And they're doing the montage of where they're all showing off their skills. And Julie the cat Gaffney is just like, bing, bing. She's like, blocking all of shots. Like they're all trying to shoot on goal, and she's just like, she's blocking them all. And this was you during this meeting? I was like, what if we sent an email?
[00:25:32] Jason: But this is not a good thing?
[00:25:33] Caroline: Yeah. I mean, you were Julie the cat. You were good. You were like, no, because this. And then I was like, okay, what if, like, a discount code? And you were like, oh, actually, this is why that would be technically impossible. Okay.
[00:25:46] Jason: No one has ever created a discount code in the history of software.
[00:25:49] Caroline: Got it, got it, got it. Discount code. Not happening. And so just left and right. I'm like, he's blocking all my shots.
[00:25:54] Jason: And also, am I normally a No person?
[00:25:56] Caroline: No, you're such a Yes person. That's why I was like, what's happening? And so once again, in our process, we're going to spot the resistance. Whenever you notice that happening, you're just like, this is our soft way of just being like, hey, what's happening? And so again, you dig in, right, of like, I'm acknowledging this resistance, but let's understand why. Where is it actually coming from?
[00:26:18] Jason: Yeah. You want me to take over?
[00:26:19] Caroline: Yeah. It took us a little while, but we got there.
[00:26:21] Jason: What I realized was, so for those of you who don't know what Intercom is, it's basically like a customer management system, but it started out as a help desk software. So it's like a little support chat that's in the bottom right. You've inevitably used it on some software that you've purchased online. And we use it for Teachery and have used it for almost as long as Teachery has existed. What has happened in the 10 years that I have essentially been running Teachery by myself is that I have essentially created, unintentionally a stuffed closet full of boxes, tupperware, clothes, and we have gotten to the place now where we are looking at the closet and we are seeing the door is about to fall open and things are pressing up against the door.
[00:27:03] Caroline: Yes. And what you mean by that is it's just been a ten year accumulation of tags that don't mean much and inaccurate ways that we are. There's just no clear way in this software, which is like very powerful software, to be able to see an accurate view of this is how many people we have in trials. This is how many people are spammers versus not spammers. This is how many customers we have in this segment. It's just very hard to see accurate data about our customers.
[00:27:32] Jason: Yeah. And as an application like Teachery has changed over the years, certain things have broken that you don't know about. And so even in just starting to relook at Intercom more closely because it serves the purpose every single day of our lives to handle customer support.
[00:27:46] Caroline: It does what it's supposed to do.
[00:27:47] Jason: That is totally fine. But on the like, we have this list of 3500 leads or users or whatever that are in Intercom, we've just never used it for that. So we start to look into this, it's like, well, this segment of 37 people. And I'm like, yeah, however that happened is probably wrong.
[00:28:04] Caroline: Right? And so we had just been looking at this software before we had the conversation about the four customers and the brainstorm. And so I think what happened was basically, you had this closet, and it was safely shut, and it's a mess, it's a nightmare.
[00:28:18] Jason: I had gotten the door closed. I walked away. It was not open. There wasn't even a creaking sound of the door.
[00:28:21] Caroline: You were like, doesn't exist. And then I come along, and I'm.
[00:28:26] Jason: Like, you grab the knob...
[00:28:28] Caroline: Head of marketing.
[00:28:28] Jason: You grab the knob, and you're like, what's in here?
[00:28:32] Caroline: And it's just...
[00:28:33] Jason: And, yeah, for me, it just felt a lot like all the things that have not been taken care of in keeping Intercom clean and working well and using it to its advantage over the years. That I've been able to put aside because I only have so much time to work on Teachery as a side project. That I've just been okay with, I'm like, it's fine. None of this works. The tagging is broken, the onboarding is not great, but Teachery has grown by word of mouth, and it has been a side project that has made money, and that's totally fine. But now that we're starting to focus on it as our thing, all it's doing is I'm confronted with all these things that are wrong with it, and it stops us from doing, like, a simple thing moving forward, which is, well, what are some creative ideas to get four new customers? I know it sounds dumb, but it's like. But the potential customers live in Intercom, and it's a hot mess.
[00:29:17] Caroline: Yeah. And it can be very. Especially if you're a person who likes to be organized, especially.
[00:29:23] Jason: Who are you talking about?
[00:29:24] Caroline: Us together, because we both are.
[00:29:27] Jason: I am not a person who eats candy.
[00:29:30] Caroline: You said it just, like, perfectly.
[00:29:32] Jason: See? I did it.
[00:29:33] Caroline: If you're a person who likes organization, I think it can be especially confronting to have to face something that feels disorganized. And I just think the second, though, this is, again, why this is so powerful. Because when we finally got there, it was so powerful because we could take a step back and go, babe, you have done a phenomenal job. You actually did the right thing, which is you shouldn't have been paying attention to this stuff for 10 years. You should have been putting all your energy into giving extremely amazing above and beyond customer service, which you do, keeping Teachery as a product up to date and adding features year over year, helping manage our development partners. You have done all of this incredible stuff with only, like, 15% of your energy because it's been a back burner project. So, of course you shouldn't have been putting your resources toward making Intercom perfectly organized. That's what I'm here for. And that was a moment where I could be like, hey, that's why I'm here. I know this is going to suck for a couple of weeks because I opened the closet door, but now it's just a problem that needs to be solved. Now I came along and there's two of us and we can just sort through the boxes and then think of how fun it'll be when it's all organized.
[00:30:50] Jason: Yeah, well, and it's one of those operator situations where I love the mantra of opportunities, not obstacles. Right? So it's an obstacle to look at Intercom right now because it slows us down from doing everything. But it's also an incredible opportunity to be able to use this tool to reach our goals and have it actually work the way we want it to. We just have to have the time and the bandwidth to be able to do it, which is what you're going to bring to this equation, because.
[00:31:13] Caroline: Exactly.
[00:31:13] Jason: I could do it. But even still, we've realized that I'm also bringing a lot of baggage to this, that I have just been pushing this thing into the closet and not using it well, because I just haven't been able to.
[00:31:23] Caroline: And so that, I think is such a powerful takeaway for people where I want listeners to think about what is that area right now that you're experiencing resistance around that thing that you want to do for your business, but you just feel like you're coming up against this brick wall. And which category of these three scenarios does it fit into? You know what I mean? Is it that you have this historical, well, you were calling it very dramatically like a wound, but it's a good word for it. Like you have these wounds from project past or things you weren't able to accomplish or whatever that emotional weight or baggage is that you carry forward into this area of your business? I think recognizing, okay, is that where this resistance is coming from? Or is the resistance coming from a disruption of someone else's system like the first example?
[00:32:13] Jason: And I'd like to give just another actionable takeaway that I think would be really helpful for anybody listening this who doesn't have the luxury like we do, of having a partner that you work with.
[00:32:21] Caroline: Right.
[00:32:22] Jason: Let's say that, for example, your stuffed closet is your email marketing software. It has just never been organized. You kind of hazardly just go in there and send emails or whatever. Maybe it's your WordPress site and it's the way you've organized pages and articles, whatever. Now would be a fantastic time to acknowledge your business wound that has festered and has become a bit of a problem. Hire someone to help you to fix it. Because if I was by myself right now, running Teachery and you weren't here at this very moment, I would pay thousands of dollars to have someone come in and just fix this for me, because I know that this business is going to make hundreds of thousands of dollars moving forward. This is like, a cornerstone piece of that business.
[00:33:07] Caroline: Right.
[00:33:08] Jason: So I'm just saying this as an example for you listening to this. If there's some part of your business that is like, that really is a stuffed closet. It's a hot mess. Maybe it only costs you, like, $200 with someone on upwork to fix it who's an expert in that thing. But pay, this is one of those things that's really helpful, if you can, to pay a little bit of money to solve a problem that long term will benefit you greatly.
[00:33:27] Caroline: Definitely. And if you're not in the place in business where you can afford to hire someone to help you with that, I think you still can learn a lot from just being able to acknowledge that. Acknowledge the discomfort of it.
[00:33:41] Jason: Absolutely. And if you can hunker down and do it yourself, more power to you. That's incredible. And also, if it's only been a year that you've been frustrated with something, it's probably a lot easier for you to get in and do it. I just know for me, having used Intercom now for, like, eight years in Teachery, there's too much baggage. I need help. I need outside help to fix this problem. Also, it just made me think while we were talking, yeah, we've paid Intercom $20,000.
[00:34:05] Caroline: It's astronomical.
[00:34:07] Jason: Over, like, eight years. That's wild to think about though.
[00:34:10] Caroline: To be fair. Yeah, that is wild. To be fair, because as you were saying that, I was like, when you were saying opportunity, not obstacles, I was like, one of our opportunities is to finally actually get our money's worth out of this thing. That is the most expensive piece of software that we pay for as a business. But how many help tickets have you?
[00:34:29] Jason: Oh, for sure. And that's why it's a good example, too, of this thing being one of the most expensive pieces of software that we use to run Teachery. That $20,000 has equated to $890,000, as we talked about in the last episode.
[00:34:43] Caroline: Right.
[00:34:43] Jason: Okay. That's worth it. That is a sound investment to have.
[00:34:46] Caroline: Yeah, no, it does sound really scary when you say that. So if you could not add it up, that'd be great.
[00:34:50] Jason: Isn't that just kind of wild when you think about that, though? If you've been in business long enough and you've been using software long enough and you think about like, oh, I've paid this company this amount of money. That's insane.
[00:34:59] Caroline: Yeah.
[00:35:00] Jason: Yeah. All right, let's get to the last scenario here, which is introverts doing customer interviews.
[00:35:05] Caroline: Introverts doing customer interviews. Okay. So the first two examples were very interpersonal. They were like things that popped up between us.
[00:35:12] Jason: You could just say Jason issues.
[00:35:15] Caroline: They were not Jason issues. They were not Jason issues. Keyword "interpersonal".
[00:35:16] Jason: I'm a person who doesn't eat candy. I don't eat candy.
[00:35:24] Caroline: No, I just meant they are more applicable to situations where you're encountering resistance with another person. But I hope this last one will be especially useful for those of you who are encountering it within yourself because I had kind of another aha moment. So last scene I'm going to set here.
[00:35:42] Jason: Fantastic. Scene setting.
[00:35:43] Caroline: Scene setting. One of our January goals for Teachery is to set up these customer research interviews. And so this is, you get on a Zoom call with a handful, maybe eight of your recent customers.
[00:35:57] Jason: Individually, though.
[00:35:57] Caroline: Individually. And you're really trying to hone in on why did you choose Teachery? What was the problem you were hoping to solve? What are the core features that you really love? What was it about your previous solution that wasn't cutting it all these things? Right. And I think this is really important because I think it's going to help us understand who our best customer is for Teachery so that we can then pour that into our marketing plan, our homepage.
[00:36:23] Jason: We fully agreed in this.
[00:36:25] Caroline: Right? You're bought in fully. Okay. So I came to this conclusion around November of last year. Like, I started reading this book. I was listening to podcasts in preparation of really focusing on Teachery this year.
[00:36:40] Jason: Can I give just like a little bit further backstory? Set the scene why customer interviews, I think are so helpful, especially for a software product. But I think it could be for any product anybody sells or service is just knowing specifically who your customer is, what problem your business solves for them completely, so that every bit of marketing, promotion, sales, copy is speaking directly to the right person. And as we started to look at working on Teachery full time this year, it made absolutely no sense at all to be like, well, let's start a TikTok marketing idea without knowing the foundation of who exactly we're attracting, the problem we're solving with them, et cetera. So I just say that as if you're a person who might be pivoting your business or you're starting a new business, or you're kind of in this weird stage where you can't really clearly identify these things. Customer interviews might be the thing that you need to focus on for, like, the first month or so.
[00:37:31] Caroline: Totally.
[00:37:31] Jason: But it'll set you up for years in the future.
[00:37:33] Caroline: Totally. And it doesn't have to be these Zoom calls. Right. It could be a handful of your best clients from 2023 emailing them a couple of questions, seeing if they would answer for you. It could be reaching out to a couple of people on Instagram, DMs. It could be a survey. It could be all these different ways, but it's really about just talk to your customers. Right. And so I was already bought in on this idea of, I need to know who these people are so that I can set a foundation for a marketing plan that we're going to develop for the whole year. Well, November, okay. Then December. Then it's the holidays. Then I'm like, january, I'm going to hit the ground running. And so what I realize is I spot the resistance, which is that I'm realizing I'm really not moving the ball forward on these customer interviews. I keep going back to this book I'm reading of what are the questions I need to ask, and what exactly am I looking for, and how do I parse out the data? And is it surveys or is it Zoom calls or whatever.
[00:38:24] Jason: The book is called "Forgetting the Funnel". We'll get to it in the show notes. Forget the funnel.
[00:38:28] Caroline: Yeah. And so it's been really helpful, but I find myself diving back into learning instead of doing. And so I just had kind of, like, I've been journaling a lot every morning as well. And so I had this moment with myself where I thought, Caroline, why are we not moving the ball forward on, like, what is the resistance? And just like we did with the interpersonal situation, it's like understanding the deeper why behind why this is happening. What is the emotional discomfort that I'm trying to protect myself from? And very quickly, it becomes clear to me, oh, I am an introvert who doesn't want to get on calls with people. It's not that I don't want to get on calls with people. It's that I'm not comfortable, because I love just going about my week and doing my work. And as much as I end up loving talking to people, and I'm very excited, actually, about talking with our Teachery customers, many introverts will be able to relate to the fact of like, yeah, it is mental resistance to think of myself doing three, four Zoom calls a week. Right? Going from zero to three or four of those. And so I had this realization where I go, oh, sweet baby Caroline. Yeah. Reading this book front to back three times is actually never going to make the Zoom calls less uncomfortable. Right.
[00:39:44] Jason: It's also not going to set them up, do the outreach, have the questions ready, transcribe them.
[00:39:51] Caroline: It's not going to solve the discomfort of cold emailing a person and saying, will you get on a call with me? It's not going to take away the discomfort of getting them on the call and being like, I've never done this before. None of that is going to be any less uncomfortable. The more that I know it's like diving into a freezing cold pool, the longer you wait. It doesn't change the fact that it's going to take your breath away when you hit the water. So would I rather hit the water a month from now or a week from now?
[00:40:19] Jason: Yeah. And this is something that I think is one of my superpowers in business, is just the ability to be like, let's just go. And I think that that's where, again, in this partnership, it's very helpful for each other to have another person for when you get kind of stuck in any of these things, to be like, okay, I get to help. Dig in here. What are we stuck by? It's like, oh, it's all these questions. Great. It's an interview. Just ask the questions. It's not a podcast episode. It doesn't need to be interesting. Also, this person is agreeing to be interviewed, so they're going to understand it's just going to be a bunch of questions. How are we going to set the things calendly? Let's just like, we'll figure it out. We'll figure out the descriptions, and it's just everything that you come up against, you just go, we'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. And what happens is when you start to do that, then a process like this becomes so much easier by the end of it. And the hilarious thing is, we probably won't do this again, but it'll get done, and it'll be so rewarding once that process is done. And all you have to do is just get over that little bit of resistance in the beginning and then just start taking imperfect action along the way.
[00:41:21] Caroline: Exactly. But it's like until you confront where that the resistance is like this weird, amorphous boulder, it's not concrete. It just sort of is like in the air around you that feels like it's preventing you from moving forward, but you can't pinpoint it. You're like, why do I feel like I'm not moving forward? It's not until you pause you recognize it, and then you're able to sort of name it that it becomes this little boulder that you can just tap a few times and it breaks into a couple of pieces. And then you go, okay, cool. This little piece, this rock, this is how I'm going to solve this. This is how I'm going to solve this. But until you confront it, you can't solidify it into something you can work through. Does that make sense? And that's what I think this whole entire podcast episode, that's what I want people to take away from. It, is when you recognize tension or frustration with another person, when you recognize tension or frustration with yourself, when you recognize feeling stuck, feeling overwhelmed. These are all just opportunities. They are things that are standing between you and your goals. And if you can pause long enough and get curious enough to interrogate, what is the emotional discomfort that my brain is trying to protect me from, that I'm trying to avoid? If you can name that, if you can get really specific about what that is, you have a much better shot of breaking through it.
[00:42:42] Jason: Totally. And even if you're an emotional robot like me, you still end up running up against resistance at times.
[00:42:48] Caroline: Definitely.
[00:42:48] Jason: And it may be resistance you never saw coming because someone changed something around you that then has a ripple effect to you. But it might also be something that you've been kind of like, putting off intentionally, but has caught up with you that you need to acknowledge and figure out how to work through.
[00:43:01] Caroline: Definitely.
[00:43:02] Jason: And so, yeah, hopefully this episode gave you not only just some validation for some of the resistance you might be feeling, but also maybe some next steps to be like, okay, I just really needed to interrogate this a little bit further, maybe journal it out, figure out what the next best steps are for you.
[00:43:15] Caroline: I cannot recommend journaling enough. It's one of those habits that was sort of on and off for me last year, and that was one of the tiny habits I wanted to give myself this year was just trying to do it daily. And it's so clarifying for me because it allows me to see, okay, I don't know. Number one, it allows you to check in on your goals, see where your head state is at, and just illuminate things to yourself that maybe are not fully conscious.
[00:43:42] Jason: Yeah, I can't recommend not eating candy enough because as a person who doesn't eat candy, definitely I don't have to eat it. And so it's easy, yucky candy for me to recommend. Oh, it's red. Why? Won't put it in my mouth. It's weird. Anyway. All right.
[00:43:59] Caroline: On that note.
[00:43:59] Jason: I think that's enough and the perfect place to end our podcast.
[00:44:02] Caroline: Excellent.
[00:44:03] Jason: As we typically do. All right, that's it. We hope you enjoyed this one. If you're a Ninja Creami person, send us your recipes. We want to know. And if you're a person who gets through some resistance, let us know as well. We'd love to hear from you.
[00:44:13] Caroline: Okay, my last thing is just right before this, we wrote out a long list of what we call open loops.
[00:44:19] Jason: Right. Right.
[00:44:20] Caroline: In your brain of like. Because I could tell Jason's got a lot on his plate right now, and he often does this for me when I have a lot on my plate is we write down all the open loops, and one of them was "finding a good vanilla base". And I was like, what's that? And he's like, yeah, it's just really. I feel like we really got to nail this vanilla base with the creamy. I was like, okay, that's what's on your plate. Got it, got it.
[00:44:42] Jason: Listen, these are the important things.
[00:44:44] Caroline: I know they are. So you're doing a great job of balancing work with life.
[00:44:49] Jason: I really try my best.
[00:44:50] Caroline: And we are going to have to go nail down this vanilla base.
[00:44:53] Jason: I got to go. Yeah, I got to wrap this up. Okay, bye.